


A Study Of Law

by lollaika



Category: One Piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8327911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollaika/pseuds/lollaika
Summary: Written for OPWeek2016. All seven prompts written from Law's point of view and 500 words long.





	1. Dreams

When Law was young and the world was all right he dreamed of becoming a doctor. It was a dream so longed for and so inescapable that it felt like a foregone conclusion. He studied and he studied and he studied and somewhere between that he lived. And then his mother got sick. And then his sister got sick. And then his father got sick. And then the world burned.

Dreaming turned black and violent. Dreaming turned pain and blood stained streets. Somewhere along the way dreaming turned death. Doflamingo liked those dreams. He bathed in their reality, held Law steadfastly underneath the rolling tide until he forgot what breathing felt like. He lived then too, in between the torture and the sickness and the hatred. He lived.

He doesn’t know when exactly hope began to creep back in, like the unwelcome stranger it was, holding the shiny thing always just out of reach. It had to have happened during his time with Corazon, travelling from hospital to hospital, stuck on a dumb man’s wild goose chase. And Law knows, he knows that he stole that hope from Corazon, that for every shade his dreams got lighter, Corazon’s turned dark. And when Corazon couldn’t dream anymore, when all that was left of him was the remembering of shown compassion, Law knew that somewhere during their travels he had learned the value of life over dreams.

So he lived. He lived for a single purpose. Not a dream, but an inescapable reality. Dragging Doflamingo into death with him. The crew he assembled, the name he made for himself, his journey along the grand line. Only that that wasn’t living. Only that he still hadn’t learned anything. Only that he realized that almost too late, when on a whim, on a whiff of someone else’s dream, he sailed towards a battle field and rescued an idiot from certain death.

But Law knew the pain of shattered dreams, of the crushing weight of nightmares turned realities, and he still had a promise to keep. He still had to live so he could die. Leaving Luffy behind felt oddly like leaving behind something brighter, but he did it.

And then he immersed himself in his dreams. Everything Doflamingo had taught him, everything that he had once escaped, would now be his key to victory. And then Luffy crashed his plans. Turning up, smiling brightly, as if he had never experienced the hell of death and dragging Law into a whirlwind of insanity and laughter. And they won. They won. They won. Somewhere in all the madness and exhaustion, in all the hopelessness of fighting, Luffy managed the unimaginable. He made Law dream of a brighter future, a happy future, a future not crushed by the weight of failure.

Somewhere in there Luffy’s dream shone so bright, that Law started to live. To really live this time. Not for the past, not for the future, but for the present and the chase of the dream.  
 


	2. Nakama

Law hadn’t ever really thought about the concept of nakama. Sure, he had Bepo, Penguin and Shachi, and he liked them, he felt comfortable with them. Still, he was their Captain, always once removed from actually calling them friends. There was trust and respect and sometimes even fun, but there was never that feeling of openness, of vulnerability, of equality. Law had thought it impossible – had thought, that this was just the way it worked, backed up by the way Doflamingo had treated his crew.

Then he’d met the Strawhats. They were a loud and boisterous group and if the first thing that Law had witnessed from the crew hadn’t been absolute devotion and trust in their Captain, he’d had never believed that a boy like that could successfully handle the reigns of those kinds of crew members. All of them, and that truly meant all of them, even the long nosed sniper, were strong willed – leaders in their own right. Law only had two of that kind on his crew, Penguin and Jean-Bart, and he knew that they wouldn’t betray him, simply because Penguin had already stayed with him so long – had been one of his first – and Jean-Bart owed him a life debt.

But to have eight of them – Law couldn’t imagine. So he didn’t. Until Punk Hazard. What he witnessed there, the craziness, the life-or-death situation, the relaxed attitude of the crew, Luffy’s laughter and his anger, it changed something in him, made something bright, that had been dark and crippled before. And they were still crazy, all of them following that damn lunatic, but Law hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since Luffy had looked at him with those big sparkling eyes and that rubber grin. Nakama.

It was preposterous. They were an alliance, nothing more. Nakama. He would die. If he was lucky, Doflamingo would die as well. Nakama. The kids smiled at him, thanked him and he could still hear Strawhat’s laugh. Nakama. He would betray them. He had deliberately lied to them – well deliberately omitted certain key elements of his plan – Nakama. It all came back to that word. And according to long nose he had no choice on the matter anyway. Not anymore. Not since he’d asked.

So he went with them. He schemed and he watched over Ceasar and he barely slept. Watching them sing and dance and prance around the deck of the ship made something hurt in him, deep. Usually, when it hurt, there had been Bepo to call, to order to lay down and to lay next to or on top. Usually, then he would sleep, and sleep soundly, the Mink’s slight snore and soft fur assuring him of where he was and who he was with.

Maybe, he thought, watching Zoro brandish his swords at Sanji, maybe he had something like nakama all along. And maybe, if he were lucky and they all survived this, he would have a few more. 

He’d quite like that.


	3. Family

Law doesn’t remember the sound of his mother’s laugh or the shade of her hair bathed in sunlight. He doesn’t remember the make of his father’s glasses or whether he preferred teaching or healing. He doesn’t remember what his sisters favorite ice cream flavor was or when her birthday had been. The things he remembers are different. There is his mother’s heavy, raspy breathing as the sickness took her and she tried to be strong for them. There was his father’s desperation and the pleas for more money, more time, more help. There were his sister’s eyes and how they had widened in fear and relaxed in trust as he had put her in the closet. He remembers her hand in his, squeezing and then letting go.

He doesn’t like remembering them, but he forces himself to. They had been his family once, they were his family still, even if only in his heart and he owed it to them. So every time before he went to sleep he looked in the mirror, said their names and tried to find traces of them in the hard lines of his face. He was never successful. 

It might have been the fire that had robbed him of their living, breathing bodies, of his mother’s warm embraces and his father’s deep bellied laugh, but it had been the time after, when all Law had wanted was to make the rest of the world burn in the same shades as his sanity did with the time that was left to him, that he forgot all of what had made them special. It had been when he had learned how to shoot, fight, intimidate, plan, torture and be tortured, that he had thrown out all of those memories that hurt the most, that hurt because they were bright, and how dare they be bright and sunlit gold when the world was so obviously slipping dark red.

It had been his fault, his mistake, to let go of those memories, to crawl into Doflamingo’s falsehood promising feathered hood and cling to the ugliness of revenge. He should have known better. Now it is too late.

Sometimes he likes to light a candle for Lami and stare into the flames, imagining her in some place better than here and address some words to her. After that he always pinches his nose, scrunches his shoulders and takes a deep breath. He is a doctor; he should know better. In all of his time dissecting people and animals – and Law is a master at dissecting, even without the use of his devil fruit – he has never seen a soul. 

Sometimes he lies in the dark on his bed and feels himself crying. He doesn’t hear it anymore. Ever since Doflamingo crying has been an activity better done soundlessly. Not, that he had always managed that, but well if his crying over Corazon always failed to be silent it’s because those tears are for a family member he actually remembers.


	4. Humor

There have been many positive, forward thinking people in Law’s life. People who found it easy to smile, to laugh, to love. Out of all those people – his parents, his sister, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin – Corazon’s and Strawhat’s smile were the brightest. It’s painful, sometimes to look at Luffy and be reminded.

It’s ironic, Law thinks, how many of those people died or suffered. Even more ironic is that he himself is still alive. It’s the ultimate joke. He should have been dead a dozen times over, starting from when he was just a kid, and still he draws breath. The thought of it leaves such a bitter taste in his mouth, full of bile that he can barely swallow it down. But he does. Each and every single time.

He himself is not known for a sunny disposition. ‘Surgeon of Death’. He’d tattooed his fingers after the name had surfaced, intrigued by the opposition the name held, intrigued, that even though he rarely killed, the name seemed to stick. And he did understand it. The way his devil fruit powers manifested it was a macabre thing to look at and even more macabre to live through. And well if Law found his humor in the contradiction of life and death – nobody could blame him. Not for the way he played up his image, the craziness, not for the way that every shudder he could draw out of an audience was like a stab in his heart. He survived. He survived. He survived. He smirked to keep the pain away.

But if there had ever been a grander joke than him still being alive, which was only held by a slim margin of possibility, it was that he was a D. Law knew what they said about Ds. The smiling death, the unbroken spirit, the joy of life, the bane of the government. How could he be a D? How could he himself hold up to the likes of Gol D. Roger? Of Portgas D. Ace? Monkey D. Dragon? Or heaven forbid Monkey D. Luffy? How could he possibly measure up, with his pessimistic outlook, his always downturned lips, his wish and longing for death? How could he measure up as a threat against the government if he couldn’t even manage to take out Doflamingo?

Yeah, if the manifestation of his humor was to deliver a hundred still beating hearts to the Marines in exchange for a position as Warlord, he didn’t hold a candle against the universe with its sick and painful jokes and its weapon called fate. He hated it.

If only he could do more. If only he could rail against it, fight against it, stand his ground. If only he could learn how to smile, how to laugh without the cold, sharp ice drawing closer around his heart. If only he were strong enough to find the humor in his depressing state. His life would be much more bearable. But he was not. He never would be.


	5. Trio

The first time Law met the trio he thought of them as a duo. After all Blackleg Sanji had not yet been considered dangerous enough to warrant such a high bounty as to belong to the Supernovas and his Wanted Poster was a pitiful drawing.

Law revised his opinion of Sanji on Punk Hazard, after the cook had fought against Vergo and saved a bunch of Marines. He was a stupid person – no difference there to the rest of the crew – but he was a powerful stupid person; and a cook. Nobody wanted to anger a cook. Well, nobody besides Zoro apparently, but see above – stupidity.

So Law now counted three heavy hitters instead of two on Strawhat’s crew and was glad for it. They would need it in their fight against Doflamingo. Other than that, he didn’t consider it further. The Strawhats were just a tool for him at that point, to be used to further his own agenda and discarded (in such a way that it hopefully wouldn’t anger them) when he had no need of them anymore. If they survived.

It was because of his own refusal to look and see, that he almost missed how important the trio was to the rest of the crew. They were more than just cook, first mate and Captain. They were also more than just heavy hitters. No, they were the protectors and the leaders.

Luffy, of course, was a leader just by being the Captain. But it went further than that. It was in the way his crew listened to him, waiting patiently, until he made a decision, ushered a command, took the first step into a new direction. It was in the way he encouraged them, in the way that he allowed them to be and do as their own hearts and minds demanded. It was in the way that no matter what had happened, no matter how beaten down or broken he was, Luffy’s crew could be certain that he would tear the world into itty bitty pieces just to get to them. He had done so for Portgas D. Ace after all. 

Zoro, well Zoro was the first mate, the second in command only in the way that he never made decisions pertaining to all, but reminded others of how important they were and that they had his back. That was the point, though. Were Luffy was the spearhead of the crew, Zoro was the backbone, made of steel and sharp edges, terrifying in his own right. And he never lost that edge, not like Luffy who could make you forget about the terror in his muscles, in his eyes.

And Sanji, well Sanji was the garnish, wasn’t he? The flower garlands and party invites and the glittering light reflecting of the disco ball. He fought and won, or he fought and got away, but he always, always protected. He was the shield.

There was no way that the crew would fall apart. Not with them.


	6. AU

When the nights are cold and Law lies shivering on his bed on the submarine unable to find sleep; his brain likes to play a game called ‘What if’. It’s not a game Law likes to play but he has no control over his thoughts anyway and nothing else to do.

The game goes a little bit like this:

What if the tragedy of Flevlance never happened? What if they had never gotten sick? Law would have studied to become a doctor. He would have been among the very best; a surgeon. Work would come in and pile up and his patients would pay vast amounts of money just so that he could operate on them. Then the Marines would come and take him, because in this world they had the Ope Ope No Mi. They would force Law to eat it and then to study it. And then they would force him to carry out the ultimate operation on one of their high-ranking officials. If they threatened his family, if they threatened Lami – well, Law wouldn’t hesitate to kill himself. At least it would be an honorable death.

Or it would go like this:

What if Law had never escaped Doflamingo. What if Rocinante had never taken him away. Law knows that he would have risen through the ranks, Doflamingo had liked him even as a child. And at that point in life Law had no remorse, no empathy. He probably would have thought that Rocinante deserved execution, when he revealed himself to be a Marine. In this world, Law would have been like an attack dog at Doflamingo’s heel. And of course, also in this world he would be forced to eat the Ope Ope No Mi and to carry out the operation. In this world, Law wouldn’t think twice about doing it.

Or there was the one in which Law died from his sickness.

There was the one in which Law took Lami with him and almost found a cure.

There was the one in which he died together with Rocinante in the birdcage.

There was the one in which Vergo broke him and broke him and broke him.

Most of them had one thing in common, though. In all of them Law was either broken or he was dead. He liked the ones where he was dead better. It usually meant that he had secured someone else’s happiness. There are some though, in which he is happy. 

There is the one where the Marine Law delivers the message to isn’t Vergo but rather some non-descript man doing his duty. They survive in that one. There is the one in which Doflamingo never knows about the Ope Ope No Mi, never hunts for it. There is the one in which Law, or another doctor, finds a cure. But Law likes these realities even less, because how is it that he has to live the one that he is living right now, if the others had been possibilities?


	7. Adventure

Law was a pirate out of necessity. First he had run from the government. Then he had run from Doflamingo. There weren’t many things one could be if both the lawful and the lawless didn’t like you, so pirate it was. The submarine, similarly was a practicality. There weren’t many ships with the means to search underwater and no Devil-Fruit user could follow them into the deep abyss of the sea.

Sure, Law liked the submarine and sure he liked not having somebody to answer to, but he would be among the first to call bullshit when other pirates talked about the call of the sea and the need for adventure. Most of them, when the shit hit the fan, took their feet into their hands and ran. Or they pissed themselves.

Of course, there were some idiots who meant what they said, delusional dreamers always reaching for an unattainable goal. The sea was not conquerable and there would always be someone better and stronger than you. No, Law was not the adventurous type.

Instead, Law liked to plan, liked to dissect his enemies until he knew what made them tick, until he knew where he could put the pressure to make it hurt. He was careful though, to not break them. An opponent who had given up all hope for victory was no fun at all. There was only one person Law would wish that upon, and well, he wouldn’t be able to do that alone.

So, no; Law was not the adventurous type. It was pretty clear though that Luffy was. It was also painfully obvious, that he was one of the people who meant it, when they spoke of adventure and of the call of the sea, of the hopes and dreams that lay out there somewhere on the Grand Line. 

Equally obvious was that his crew where made from the same foolishness. Some of them managed to hide it quite well, like Robin and Chopper or even Nami, but it was there all the same. It was in the sparkle in their eyes, in the grin on their lips, in the sureness of their words, in the tilt of their heads. Someday it would come crashing down around them. Same as it had come crushing down around Corazon. Same as it had come crushing down around Law’s crew when he had left them. But Law would be a greater fool to discourage them, if their need for adventure was what had made them agree to his plan. So he remained silent.

He remained silent though the whole journey to Dressrosa. He remained silent during the part on Greenbit, where he lost Usopp and Robin. He remained silent as Doflamingo shot him in front of the colosseum. He remained silent as Luffy carried him over half of the island. But then they fought. And Law didn’t want to be silent anymore.

If foolishness was what had brought the Strawhats this far – well he too could be foolish.


End file.
